Jane Avril
Jane Avril (born Jeanne Richepin ; born May 31, 1868 in Paris , † January 16, 1943 in Paris), also called Mélinite , was a French dancer .
Life
Like her predecessor at the Moulin Rouge , La Goulue , Jane Avril was only about sixteen when she began her career. This was preceded by a heavily burdened childhood and youth: Her father, the Italian Marchese Luigi de Font, had left the family and her mother beat her. Eventually Jane Avril was admitted to the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière mental hospital, where Jean-Martin Charcot carried out experiments with her. In the end, she was only released from this nervous hospital because the nurses were enthusiastic about her talent for dancing.
Jane Avril began her dance career as a self-taught, as she never had solid dance lessons. With dance improvisations to waltz music in the Bal Bullier and in 1889 as "Riding Beauty" in the Hippodrome, she began to earn money with her performances. At the opening of the Moulin Rouge on October 6, 1889, Jane Avril (also called Mélinite) performed a solo and became a star alongside La Goulue .
Jane Avril never danced without a hat, mostly without a partner and rarely took part in the quadrille naturaliste . In many of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's works, she appears lonely and unhappy, but on the other hand, her special charisma as well as her sophisticated wardrobe are captured here. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec first met her in the Moulin de la Galette and portrayed her several times between 1892 and 1893. Several posters were created that she commissioned from him, such as B. for her appearances in 1893 in the Jardin de Paris on the Champs-Elysées .
Artists and writers such as Arsène Houssaye , Alphonse Allais , Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Teodor de Wyzewa were among her friends and admirers; the latter even dedicated a chapter to her in his novel Valbert ou Les Récits d'un Jeune Homme .
Jane Avril danced in the famous Cabaret Le Chat Noir , the first cabaret of its kind in Paris, in the Casino de Paris and appeared in the Folies Bergère as Pierrot in a ballet pantomime. In 1897 she gave a successful guest appearance at the Palace Theater in London , a guest appearance took her to Madrid . In 1910 she gave birth to a son; later she married the painter Maurice Biais , who left her as a penniless widow in 1926 after a miserable life outside the capital.
During the First World War , repeated appearances at numerous charity events followed. In August 1933 her memoirs were published in "Paris Midi". On the occasion of a Toulouse Lautrec ball, she appeared again on May 31, 1935 in the Moulin de la Galette. A charity event was organized for them on June 22, 1939.
Only once again, in 1941, at the age of 73, did she return to Paris for a “grand finale”. Jane Avril died at the age of almost 75 on January 16, 1943 in the Pavillon des Vieilles on Rue de la Saida in Paris and was final buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery .
Jane Avril is a "central supporting character" in the pseudo-documentary novel "The Book of Blanche and Marie" by Per Olov Enquist , in which the author depicts the life of Marie Curie and Blanche Wittman in partly fictional, partly real scenes.
Works
- Paris midi. Memoires , Fayard, Paris 1933.
literature
- François Caradec: Jane Avril. Au Moulin Rouge avec Toulouse-Lautrec , Frayard, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-213-60888-1
- Jose Shercliff: Jane Avril of the Moulin Rouge. Roman , Rowohlt, Reinbek 1956 (rororo; Vol. 184)
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Avril, Jane |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Richepin, Jeanne |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | french dancer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 31, 1868 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 16, 1943 |
| Place of death | Paris |